NATO: European Cowardice 2

The majority of NATO countries are in the organisation for a free ride. Too terrified of their own shadows to defend themselves, membership of NATO allows the likes of Belgium, Norway, Spain and the rest of the firmly non-combatant nations to strut about the world stage, posturing about peace and security, whilst contributing nothing of value to the organisation. Nowhere illustrates the hypocrisy and cowardice of the majority of member states better than Afghanistan. No wonder then that America is getting increasingly frustrated with NATO and, moreover, is expressing those frustrations publicly.

It is one thing for analysis in blogs, for example, Crumbling Spires, to refer to European Cowardice, in NATO, but it is quite something else when Ronald Neumann, American ambassador in Afghanistan says it, albeit couched in the language of diplomacy.

The UK Daily Telegraph reports that in an interview with the German magazine, Der Speigel,

The American ambassador to Kabul has accused European members of Nato of jeopardising the future of the alliance by refusing to send troops to Afghanistan, or banning their forces from entering areas with heavy fighting.
[He] said European nations must not turn "coward" and "run away" from fighting terrorism in Afghanistan....
...Mr Neumann said some Europeans "obviously resist the idea that you have an army in order to fight. And I have very little patience for that".

The full article is a depressing litany of NATO's problems in Afghanistan: lack of troops; Spain,France Germany and Belgium refusing to make Eurocorps troops available; and Germany, Norway, Belgium and others refusing to let their troops anywhere near the fighting.

So the America, Britain, Canada, Netherlands and Australia, which is not a even member of NATO, continue to bear the load. The immediate problem of finding sufficient NATO troops to expand the ISAF operations into eastern Afghanistan has been solved by transferring 12,000 US troops to NATO command.

When a non-member state, Australia, is a more valuable ally than the majority of NATO, perhaps it is time to rethink the nature of the alliance.

Update:

Ambassador Neumann's interview with Spiegel

Tags: Afghanistan, NATO